First Flight
by Maybe the Moon
Summary: Oliver can tell the twins apart. Slash. Part of the First Kiss Challenge.


Ravenclaw 120, Gryffindor 270.

"Oi, Oliver?"

He half-turns, broomstick in one hand. "Oi, George." Polish from the rag in the other drips onto the floor, four little drops shaped like Quaffles at his feet.

George leans against the Hufflepuff storage cupboard, pulling his shin guards off one by one. The wooden door creaks against his back as he braces himself against it and regards Oliver with tilted curiosity.

"Not once," he said, "since I joined the team have you ever called me Fred."

Oliver resumes tending to his broom. It's almost loving the way he holds it so gently, the crooked little smile that dances upon his lips as he works.

"Well, you're not Fred," he replies. "You're George." He picks bits of grass from the pitch out of the bristles. "I wouldn't call you anything else."

When his broom is finished he places it into the Gryffindor cupboard, touches the tip of the handle with his fingertips as he does after every single match. It's part ritual, part habitual, or perhaps it's an involuntary quirk like scratching one's nose. He closes the door, flicking the latch in place and using his wand to lock it.

Oliver moves to leave and George is suddenly _right_ _there_, George is all he can see and all he can taste. The mouth on his licks and purrs upon his lips like the buzz of flight, the beat of a Snitch's wings against the palm of his hand. The room shifts and suddenly Oliver feels like he's gone into a steep descent that he's not certain he'll be able to pull out of.

He's never been kissed before, not like this, and the fumbling way George's hand grips at his shoulder, tugging at the collar of his sweater, suggests that George hasn't done so either. Oliver doesn't much care; he's tumbling through the air in a spiral dive, and the air around them smells of fresh earth and wind and broom-polish.

The ground rushes up to meet him, and Oliver braces himself for impact.

It never comes, because George steps away and the kiss is over. Oliver opens his eyes and licks his lips, and when George does the same Oliver wants nothing more than to step forward, close that inch of space between them, and do it for him.

There's an awkward shuffling of feet. George seems incapable of not smirking. It occurs to Oliver that something has transgressed that's been a long time in coming, even though he wasn't aware of it until there was a tongue in his mouth.

Now, though, he wonders what's taken so long.

"Right, then," says George, scratching the center of his forehead and hefting his broom by the handle. "Just, er..." He colours slightly, and some of his freckles disappear into it. Oliver wonders if George realises that he doesn't share them with his brother. The flecks of tan across his nose have a constellation unique only to George.

Oliver would know this; he's spent enough time around the both of them to memorise their individual galaxies.

He steps forward and presses one finger to the largest freckle on George's face, just to the left of his nose. "This makes you George," he says. He presses another freckle. "And this."

George shivers. Oliver feels the tremor drifty up through his arm like a breeze.

With his hand still hovering near George's cheek he continues. "And the way you tilt your broom forward just slightly before you take off, and how you always bank slightly to the right when you fly, because you're right-handed."

His fingers brush the slightly curled tips of George's hair.

The door to the broomshed swings open and Oliver's hand drops, George moves to the other side of the room with all the grace and stealth of a Snitch. Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnet stagger inside, weighed down by the ball-box held between them.

"George," says Angelina, "give us a hand, yes?"

As he goes to help her Oliver turns away, busies himself with tugging off the remainder of his gear and storing it away. He hears George talking low with Angelina and Alicia's laughter, and the sound of the ball-box being shoved into a closet. The door snicks shut.

A tap on his shoulder, one finger against the fabric of his robes. "Going for food," says George. "See you there?"

Oliver nods. "Just finishing up, here."

A crooked grin. "Right. Cheers, then."

The finger touches his shoulder again, this time a little softer, for just a little longer, before the Beater is swept off by two Chasers and the Keeper is suddenly alone.

"You and Fred are really nothing alike," he says to the quiet, to George's lingering scent, to the ghost of a mouth against his.

He finishes straightening up and then leaves, shuts the broomshed door with a twitch of his wand. When he turns he looks up to the sky. It is bright blue and clear, wide-open like a merry pair of eyes, and walking back toward Hogwarts he remembers the thrill of his first flight.

Oliver wonders how soon it will be before he gets to soar again.


End file.
